After »[ΔNFANG]« (2019) and »[℧R]« (2020), »[ΣXHALE]« is the third production in a series reflecting on the forms of human violence that have risen from the coalescence of polarised societies, algorithmic megastructures, and natural ecosystems.
Combining dance, theatre, interactive music, body art, and biotechnological installation, »[ΣXHALE]« is a living biome. The piece takes shape as a collective, durational experiment in four episodes. After an induction ceremony, the audience is ushered into a garden-like environment whose ecosystem of natural and synthetic elements – human performers, AI algorithms, plant and fungal life – entangles it in a cathartic ritual. Through a choreography of repetition, intimacy, and tension conceived to surround and stir the audience, a mutual interconnectedness and interdependence becomes progressively apparent.
The AI named <dmb>, created by Fronte Vacuo, actively participates in this mutable ecology. During each episode, <dmb> learns to see the world of »[ΣXHALE]« by analysing videos of performers and audience from multiple cameras. In response to this, <dmb> generates a real-time composition of light, video, and ambisonic music, creating feedback between the events and their computational representation. As human, more-than-human and AI lifeforms influence one another, a gradual shared intimacy emerges. Only by acknowledging these hidden ties and respecting a collective form of existence can the loop of violence be broken.
Concept: Fronte Vacuo (Donnarumma, Pevere, Familari)
Direction, Choreography, AI Music system: Marco Donnarumma
Choreography, Symbionts: Margherita Pevere
Interactive Light and Video Design, Technical Direction: Andrea Familari
Set Design, Costumes: Anna Cingi
AI and Machine Learning Research: Baptiste Caramiaux
AI Engineering: Meredith Thomas
Sculpture: Ana Rajcevic
Performance, Choreographic Thinking: Hikaru Inagawa and Maco (4RUDE), Steffi Wieser, Will Lopes, Margherita Pevere, Marco Donnarumma
Audiovisual Dramaturgy: AI performer <dmb>
Spores: Pleurotus salmoneostramineus, Hericium erinaceus
Production: Daniela Silvestrin, René Dombrowski, Olga Wiedemann
Dramaturgy Advice: Anne-Kathrin Schulz
»[ΣXHALE]« is a production by Fronte Vacuo, co-produced by the Volkstheater Wien, CTM Festival, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), associated with the Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique (LRI) at the Université Paris-Saclay and by the tanzhaus nrw as part of the Alliance of International Production Houses. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Supported by the Performing Arts Fund from funds of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media of the Federal Republic of Germany and by the co-financing fund of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. Partially developed at Akademie für Theater und Digitalität.